Wednesday, October 24, 2007

So Radiohead decided to "take out the middleman" and put their latest album directly available on the Internet. Furthermore, they let fans decide how much to pay for it. Was this really a good idea? Definitely a good idea for us, the fans. Pay less, get more.

But what about Radiohead? Was this really worth it for them? Well, the latest numbers on the digital selling say that in average each person paid $5 (around 3.5€) for the album. The problem seems to be that Radiohead in general receive $6 (around 4.2€) for each album sold in the "old" business model.

So, taking into account that the $5 share they get on the digital business model is not the final value they receive (since there are still some people they need to pay like webmasters, web designers and production studios) I would say Radiohead are taking a big leap of faith with this choice.

The question is now this: did they do this because they thought that they were going to get more money or did they do this for the fans, to allow us to get access to their art for less money?

I wonder if other musicians will follow their lead, now that the truth has been revealed...